In conversations over the last few weeks, I’ve found myself talking about Numenera to interested people–not so much the rules, or the setting, but the essence of the game. When I was a teenager, I played in a 1st edition AD&D game run by my friend Jay. Jay passed away recently and his loss from…

There’s a well-accepted “truism” in the tabletop industry nowadays: Adventures don’t sell. There’s only one problem with this bit of truth–it’s not true at all. Many, if not most, of the bestselling tabletop products of all time are adventures–Keep on the Borderlands, Ravenloft, etc. I think adventures are important for many reasons. First and foremost,…

The Numenera corebook’s design and development are complete. There’s still a lot of editing to do, a few illustrations and maps to complete, and layout’s only just begun, but things are moving along quite quickly now. It’s very exciting to see it pull together. In coming weeks, you can expect to see a number of…

This weekend, I finished making the last few adjustments to the Numenera rules based on playtester feedback. Sean Reynolds, the developer, has taken a pass through most of the rules now too, and editors Shanna Germain and Ray Vallese are now editing some of the initial material. We’re also looking at some initial page layout…

When originally thinking about technology in the Ninth World, I mostly thought in terms of how it was used, and thus created cyphers, artifacts, oddities, and discoveries. These categories are useful to show how a PC interacts with the numenera–how it is (or isn’t) useful to them. As I began actually writing, I found that there’s…

I keep bringing up Arthur C. Clarke’s third law, that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” when I talk about Numenera. It’s a lynchpin for the entire game and its associated setting. Does that mean that the technology of the Ninth World is just simply fantasy with the serial numbers filed off? Not…

Need to catch up on what happened before? The last installment can be found here. After their negotiations with Devola, Caracol Vus, Grayden, Fisher, and Caedmyn went to a storehouse in the complex where the strange serpentine creature had stored some supplies. They not only found food, water, and other necessities for their journey, but some…

As mentioned in the previous installment, the four companions, Caedmyn the graceful nano, Grayden the glaive who commanded mental powers, Caracol Vus the strong blademaster, and Fisher, the jack who crafted illusions, had activated an ancient vehicle. That vehicle now sped through an underground tunnel, carrying the four of them in the direction that the metallic…

So, early on in the Kickstarter for Numenera we added a bestiary as a stretch goal. This bestiary will be filled with creatures, but will also have some characters and character types, because not everything that you interact with is a “monster.” Plus, in the Ninth World, some things that seem like monsters are actually potential allies,…

The Ninth World is the setting for my new Numenera roleplaying game. I’ve described it as a far future post-apocalyptic setting. Basically, it’s the backdrop of a young civilization that has grown up amid the ruins of very old, very advanced civilizations. A billion years from now, we are long gone, as are the civilizations…